London Surrey Docks Buzz Bingo – Teredo Street

Surrey Quays was a proper 1990s leisure-park club, purpose-built rather than housed in any old cinema or theatre. It opened in 1998 at Teredo Street as part of the newly built Surrey Quays Leisure Park, sitting alongside a Hollywood Bowl, an Odeon cinema and various restaurants in a fairly typical late-90s entertainment complex, itself part of the wider post-docklands regeneration of Rotherhithe following the closure of the old Surrey Commercial Docks. It started life as Gala Bingo before becoming Buzz Bingo in 2018 when Gala’s UK estate was rebranded, offering the standard modern package of traditional and electronic bingo, a substantial arcade, a bar and diner, and afternoon and evening sessions throughout the week. No reliable seating capacity survives, but the surrounding leisure park had generous parking, with Southwark’s planning documents recording 585 spaces across the wider site.

The club survived Buzz’s initial round of pandemic-era closures, only to be caught in a second wave of rationalisation. In March 2023, Buzz announced the closure of nine clubs from its 91-strong estate, citing footfall that had never recovered post-pandemic, with Surrey Quays among them and 22 staff affected. The last day of trading was expected to be Monday 10 April 2023. Its closure turned out to be the beginning of the end for the whole leisure park, with the neighbouring Odeon and Hollywood Bowl closing permanently in September 2024 as redevelopment took hold. Surrey Quays is a good example of a very particular kind of loss, not a grand old bingo hall disappearing, but an entire late-90s model of leisure, shopping, cinema, bowling and bingo all under one roof, quietly vanishing along with it.

Other Lost Halls In The Area

• Bedford Mecca Bingo – London Road
• Brandon Winners Bingo – London Rd
• London – Acton Gala Bingo – High Street
• London – Gala Bingo East Ham – Barking Road
• London – Acton Mecca Bingo – Old Oak Road
• London – Bethnal Green Essoldo Bingo – Bethnal Green Road
• London – Gala Bingo Camberwell – Camberwell Road
• London – Catford Mecca Bingo – Plassy Road
• London – Gala Bingo Clapham – St. John’s Hill
• London – Gala Bingo Crystal Palace – Church Road

Here are some photos of the Surrey Quays Bingo on Teredo Street from Twitter and Facebook, to give you a flavour of the club, its customers and decoration. The photographers are unknown, but if one of these is yours let us know and we’ll add a credit.

Also, if you have photos to add here, please contact us here to share them.